someone else's voice

I don't think it is an accident that I cannot sing. God in wisdom far greater than mine limited me in ways that I am beginning to appreciate. Despite all of my talents at the piano bench and as a composer I sound like a dying cat when I try sing anything.

I have known this for years, but when some friends and I were playing Sing Star the true nature of the beast was revealed as I butchered song after song. Fact: I didn't know it was possible to make Britney Spears sound worse. It happened. I was terrible. I got maybe 50,000 points, my friends were in the upper nineties. The only song I did moderately well was a "rap" if you count The Ting Tings as a rap group.

It is not if I imagined myself as the man with an angel's voice and Jake Gyllenhall's good looks. Although on good days I do believe the second to be true. I knew I wasn't great but bad, no, not me. "I'm not bad at anything" I'd whisper to the pride monster in my chest. It has three heads, it's name is Fluffy.

I can imagine now that if I could sing well I'd be that guy. You know who I'm talking about. The reallllly annoying one who is always singing. That would have been me. My head would have been the size of a large balloon, sadly my head is already larger than the average man's. The last thing it needs is more ego. Thanks Freud!

The more I have moments where I realize my weaknesses I'm able to tear down more of my egotism, my relentless craving for affrimation, and my paranoia that I'll never be good enough, blah blah blah. And in those moments and for many moments afterwards I am able to walk down some joyous road where I just exist.

I am who I am because that's what God thought was best, and even if God didn't think it was best, it's who I am. I think I could have been a famous singer, if only I had someone else's voice, but failure hass always sounded better, let's fuck it boys, let's make some noise!

a certain stillness in the air

There is something strangely comforting about silence and it's brother stillness. The same magic grants power to the acoustics and the natures in things. It is in these spaces where there is little noise but our thoughts that we are most uncomfortable. Because it is our voice that reverberates and resounds instead all of the noise we are subjected to daily.

Over the last couple of months, silence has crept into my life like some strange turtle. It all began with my car's radio going haywire. I was in love with my car's iPod dock and when the radio went it went with it leaving me only with burned cd's and my thoughts. I still was resistant to the call of the quiet.

After the 1200 mile round trip I got tired of listening to Ben Gibbard lament all the loves that could have been, the relentless pulse of the Neon Bible, or feel Anathallo's Canopy Glow. I turned off the nosie and just drove, listening to the road pass me, and the sky surrounding me.

I have learned slowly and painfully to accept that the quiet is not my enemy but my friend. Comforting and serene in all the ways I am not it represents so much of the nature of God to me. It is against my natural inclinations and there is some ancient magic to that. Is this what the monks found in the desserts? Is this where God speaks the loudest?

It is in this space where I can finally do battle with my demons and embrace the divine, for it is a realm I am wholly unfamiliar with. I long for a map, but I love the thrill of discovering something so new to me, sharing some secret others have been aware of for years. I am not so arrogant anymore as to think that this is all new, so many others have gone before.

Into the depths we dive, in quiet waters churned only by our hands. In these spaces we reflect onto our surroundings and see our wounds. We heal by these springs and we mend ourselves in love.

now in monochrome!

Please ignore the lack of a photo on this blog. I really want to show you something so beautiful that it'd make you cry, but my camera is kind of broken, my computer crashed and I lost a bunch of stuff, and I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr in awhile so I apologize. I just feel bad that you have to read paragraphs of boring black and white words. It's hard I know. I'd have closed the browser down minutes ago.

I can't wait to have the money to buy a really nice camera, maybe the Nikon D80 or the D200 if I'm really rolling in the dough. I mean I hate love my Kodak, and I really love what I've been able to do with it, but I've become so frustrated with it that capturing moments is painstaking and rather irritating. I think the camera is just revenging itself on me.

The Kodak has been dropped numerous seven times, dropped in a washing machine full of water, survived a few years with me, lived in my satchel without padding.

Poor little dude, no wonder bright lights make him condensate, dark rooms make him pixelate everything and nothing at the same time. I've gotten pictures back of just pixelated darkness, no contrast, no nothing. It's sad.

So hopefully pictures will return along with the sun or something. Wow, that sounded completely ridiculous.

words are flowing out

Writing is something that I always wished I was able to do well. In my mind I always imagined words flowing like water in some distant country where they ate on the floor and rode horses and poets smoked long pipes while discussing philosophy. In reality, I have trouble with the simplest of sentences and grammar and I have been grappling for years now.

Blogging is synonymous with writing, a particular style of writing, reminiscent of essays of wiser and more talented writers who are effortlessly witty, transparent, and speak truth to the soul. As I put fingers to board and began to write I realized despite my illusions of grandeur, visitor reports, and comment sections, it quickly becomes apparent that I am none of these.

I also came to realize that all of my efforts of writing were about trying to puff myself up, to get people to pay attention to me, or think that I was cool, or hip, or trendy. I think I wanted the girls to date me and I wanted the guys to emulate me.

Someone once said that all writer's are egotistical maniacs. Not false.

So here we are again, dipping the pen in ink. But why?

Because I need to, my soul, it wants to write. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup and they need somewhere to go. I need my memories, they drift downstream from me so quickly. I want more from my life than all twenty hearts in Zelda, or having great cups of coffee with the ones I love. I write to remember and to see the pictures God paints.

Here we are again, I'll keep it simple.